Officers from Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire police forces spent a week patrolling the M1 and the main roads between South Yorkshire and the East Midlands.

‘Operation Barric’ was set up in response to an increase in curtain-sided HGVs being attacked at lorry parks and laybys across the East Midlands.

Between January 1 and 21 April there were 98 offences in Northamptonshire, 49 offences in Leicestershire, 27 in Nottinghamshire and 18 in Lincolnshire.

The seven men arrested in the crackdown are from Leeds and Derbyshire.

Sergeant Garry Johnson said: “These arrests show just how far people will travel to commit crime and reflect how important it is that forces work together.

"Criminals do not commit crime within county boundaries; they use our road networks to travel around committing crimes in different areas then moving on and that can make it more difficult for us to track and arrest them.

"However, by sharing information; making the best use of automatic number plate recognition technology and having officers from different forces patrolling the road network together we can, and will, catch criminals who travel in and out of our counties to commit crime.”